This invention generally relates to clothes dryers, and in a representatively illustrated embodiment thereof, more particularly relates to a specially designed forced convection hanging clothes dryer and associated control system.
Tumble clothes dryers are well known in the field and are commonly used to dry wet clothing by continuously rotating the clothing in a drum while passing heated or unheated air through the drum. Conventionally, all tumble dryers operate on this same principle of rotating the clothing in an attempt to expose more surface area of the clothing to the heated air circulated through the drum to dry the clothing. It is known this combination of rotating and heating damages the clothing. The damage is particularly a result of the mechanical friction applied to the clothing fabric as it is tumbled. This damage can be further exaggerated by excessively drying the clothing. In recent years, there have been efforts made to reduce over drying by utilizing various sensors, such as moisture sensors and temperature sensors to monitor the wetness or dryness of the clothing to control the drying cycle. However, these controls are still prone to problem and do not eliminate the tumbling of the clothes.
Additionally, the efficiency of tumble dryers is relatively low and a significant percentage of energy is expended in drying a single load of clothing. A significant percentage of the energy is consumed through the operation of the drum driving motor and the blower or fan, and a great deal of the energy consumption is from the heating of the air circulated through the drum. Conventionally, room air is drawn into the dryer and across a heating element. The heated air is then passed through the drum and exhausted from the dryer. Because of the relatively short contact time between the heating element and the room air and between the heated air and the clothing, oversized heating elements are utilized to ensure the air is heated to a high enough temperature to facilitate drying. In many cases, air is over heated, and excess energy is wasted, due to the insufficient saturation of the air, being vented, which is partly due to the short time the air is inside the dryer before being vented
While tumble dryers utilizing gas burners are more energy efficient than those utilizing electrical heating elements, both expend far more energy than otherwise would be consumed by a device that controllably heats and recirculates the air and does not include a rotating drum.
Still yet, tumble dryers have further drawbacks including creating a static charge between the clothing, also popularly referred as “static-cling” and wrinkling clothing that has been left unattended, even for a short period of time, within the drum of the dryer after a drying cycle.
Cabinet clothes dryers are also known in the field and operate similar to tumbler clothes dryers in the respect that heated or non-heated air is circulated across the clothing to promote drying. The main difference between the two dryers is the cabinet clothes dryer does not include a rotating drum and the clothes are either laid flat or hung. While conventional cabinet clothes dryers overcome the drawback of tumbling clothing associated with tumble clothes dryers, they are not devoid of drawbacks. Particularly, existing cabinet clothes dryers suffer from the uncontrolled mixing of recirculated air with room air. Additionally drawbacks include methods utilized for hanging clothing, and further, being of a single cabinet construction wherein all of the clothing are subjected to the same drying cycle regardless of the possible different drying requirement between the clothing.